I hope im not just a blog you follow but also the only person with 100% correct opinions about the little mermaid
Dish those opinions, let's hear it
My biggest issue is the absolute ice cold take of "Ariel gave up her life/voice for a boy" when the film repeatedly shows Ariel was preyed upon by Ursula. She was exploited and stalked by the literal antagonist of the film into making a really bad decision, especially when Ursula knew Ariel was at her most emotional and the least unable to reach out to her support network.
And the deal Ariel made was meant to be an impossible task that she was tricked into taking AND STILL Ariel was smart enough to almost achieve it if Ursula wasn't playing dirty and directly interfering in with it all.
Ariel was absolutely a victim of manipulation and circumstance, and people who use this as an irredeemable flaw in her character act like they got big brain energy when their brains are smooth as fuck.
(not to mention she was 16)
Also?
URSULA is the one who says Ariel’s doing it all for the guy.
According to Ariel herself, what she wants is:
—to be where the people are
—to see dancing and walking
—to ask her questions about the human world and get answers
—to not live in the ocean
—to be part of the human world
—to explore the human world
WHERE DOES ERIC COME INTO ANY OF THIS?!
She wants to see a world she isn’t able to see! She wants to have adventures, not a boyfriend! What the hell!
I would argue that she was totally fine with the boyfriend, but Ursula was the one who forced it to be a priority.
AND ANOTHER THING
Her first impression of him is a dude who is both attractive, capable, and willing to jump back on to a burning ship to save his dog.
Later, dude climbs aboard a SHIPWRECK that's caught in a WHIRLPOOL so that he can RAM IT into a 150-foot-tall MAGIC SEA MONSTER in order to save her.
It's not like girl was settling.
Ariel is a field anthropologist. That she happened to fall in love with a member of the culture she was studying isn't exactly a problem.
Damn, Ursula really did tie the whole promise of legs and soul-keeping to Ariel's ability to land this one particular guy without the thing by which he's likely to recognize her . . . that's both seriously omniscient of Ursula and also pretty much the entire source of the urgency of Ariel's need for Eric specifically.
Ariel didn't need the man until Ursula made her need the man. Ariel wanted the land and the sun and the bipedal locomotion, and Eric was only a bonus.
(That the whole point of the thing from Ursula's point of view was to take Ariel's soul hostage to use against her father is an underexplored aspect as well---there is a strong theme of parent-child love as well as romantic love in the story, and the only one who really understands it is the freaking villain.)
